


Two Slow Dancers

by writedontfight



Series: Falsettos one-shots [11]
Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Inspired by the one and only mitski, M/M, angst-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 15:18:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19212118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writedontfight/pseuds/writedontfight
Summary: His boxes have all been sent ahead of him, so the apartment is nearly empty. There's no food or dishes left in the kitchen. The couch is still sitting in the living room, but his various throw pillows are gone now. The cabinets and shelves are all empty. And the air smells like a cleaning solution that is familiar to him but he can’t quite place.





	Two Slow Dancers

**Author's Note:**

> LISTEN TO TWO SLOW DANCERS BY MITSKI ON REPEAT WHILE YOU READ THIS THANK YOU

His boxes have all been sent ahead of him, so the apartment is nearly empty. There's no food or dishes left in the kitchen. The couch is still sitting in the living room, but his various throw pillows are gone now. The cabinets and shelves are all empty. And the air smells like a cleaning solution that is familiar to him but he can’t quite place. His landlord had sent in a housekeeper to make sure everything was sparkly for possible future tenants. 

He’s wearing sweats and an old Columbia sweatshirt. They’re the only clothes besides the airplane outfit sitting on his bed that he hasn’t packed into boxes or the overstuffed, overweight bags he’s going to be paying a fortune to get onto the plane.

Whizzer sits on the arm of his couch and sighs. He’ll miss this place. He looks around at the bare walls. Over the years, he had amassed quite a collection of posters and art pieces. He’d had to give a lot of it away. He’d had to give a lot away. 

He’s so entrenched in his thoughts that he nearly falls off the edge of the couch when there’s a knock at the door.

“Coming!” Whizzer calls. He had said goodbye to his friends all weekend and earlier in the day, wanting this night for himself. To say goodbye to this apartment and this neighborhood and this city. And to get some sleep before facing JFK at seven in the morning. So he opens the door expecting his landlord with some extraneous paperwork or something. Not someone he really knows. And especially not the person standing in the doorway when he swings the door open. “Hi, what’s--” His voice catches when he registers who is standing in front of him. “What… What are you…”

“You were going to leave without saying goodbye.”

“We’ve barely spoken in over a year.”

“I didn’t even know you were leaving. How could you not tell me you were leaving?”

“I can’t believe Jason didn’t tell you.”

“He assumed I knew. I should have known.”

“Why? You’re only a part of my life anymore because of Jason. You made sure of that.”

“But you’re still a part of my life. Because of Jason, but you are. I made sure of that too.”

“That’s not fair.”

“I know. I know it’s not fair.”

“You kicked me out. You made that decision.”

“I made that mistake!”

Whizzer’s breath catches and he steps back. “You had, what, a year and a half to come to that conclusion and you choose now? I’m leaving, Marvin. Tomorrow. Nothing’s gonna change that.”

“I’m not trying to change that. And I tried for days not to come, but I.. I just needed to say goodbye.”

Whizzer runs his hands over his face and laces his hands behind his neck, shaking his head. He drops his gaze to the floor, before stepping back and waving him inside. “Come in,” he says quietly. He shuts the door behind Marvin, and leans up against it as Marvin gazes around the apartment. “I would offer you food or a drink or something, but…”

“Yeah.” He turns back to Whizzer and tilts his head at him. “Is that my sweatshirt?”

Whizzer looks down. “Um, is it?” It is. He knows it is.

“That’s definitely my sweatshirt! I’ve been looking for that!”

“Why? It’s too big for you anyway.”

“I liked it that way! It was comfortable!”

“It still is comfortable. That’s why I stole it.”

Marvin breaks into a smile. “Thief.”

Whizzer shrugs. “Sorry.”

“No you’re not.”

“No, I’m not.”

Marvin laughs quietly, and then the room falls silent. 

“Um, you should, uh, sit. You should sit,” Whizzer says eventually, nodding towards the couch.

He does, and Whizzer joins him and it’s silent again for a while. And Whizzer can’t seem to put his thoughts together. So he’s glad when Marvin talks first.

“What’s that smell in here? It’s familiar but I can’t place it.”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out. Some chemical used by the person who cleaned the place.”

It’s quiet again for a while, before: “I can’t believe you’re leaving New York.”

“Me neither.”

“I can’t believe you’re leaving the  _ country _ .”

“Me neither,” Whizzer says. “But I need this. I don’t know why. I’ve been freelancing since I got out of college, and I loved it. It’s what I wanted. But I just suddenly… I got tired. Of instability. And this job offer came… I mean, it’s French Vogue. In-house photography for fucking Vogue. And it’s just time, you know? To settle down with something.”

“If only you felt that way about relationships as well.”

“I would have.”

“What?”

“I would have. I think. With you, I mean.  _ For  _ you. I wanted to. It just all blew up before I could build up the courage.”

“I blew it up you mean.”

“No, I don’t, actually.”

“What am I supposed to do with that?”

“I don’t know. Same thing I’ll do with your epiphany. Hold onto it forever and wonder how my life would’ve turned out if we weren’t such fucking cowards.”

“Fair enough.”

Whizzer rubs his thighs anxiously as the room falls silent again.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”

“Why did you wait until today to say goodbye?”

Marvin shakes his head. “I’m gonna miss you, Whiz. I already do.”

Whizzer looks down at his hands.

“But Paris, my god. So many of those French men in cufflinks you were always daydreaming about.”

Whizzer laughs. “God, I’ll miss being the prettiest and best-dressed in the room.”

“Oh, you still will be. Trust me on that.”

Whizzer smiles. “We’ll see.”

“Do you even speak French, though?”

“Technically.”

“Technically?”

“I took it in high school and a bit in college and I still remember how to, like, ask for the bathroom.”

“Well, that’s good at least. If nothing else you can survive off sink water and men’s room mints.”

“My thoughts exactly."

"God, I can't believe I'll have been with you before you could talk dirty in French."

"Mm, sorry to have deprived you,  _ mon ami. _ "

Marvin grins. "You are not forgiven."

"Well, I am a few levels into Rosetta Stone by now, you know."

"Oh?"

" _ Oui _ ."

"And how's that going?"

" _ Très bien _ ." 

"Okay. Prove it."

"Prove it?"

"Talk dirty to me."

"Marvin, that is highly inappropriate."

Marvin nods. "You're right. Totally inappropriate."

"Totally," Whizzer says, leaning his elbow into the back of the couch and leaning his head into his hand. He places a hand on Marvin's knee. " _ Où est la gare ferroviaire la plus proche _ ," he says softly.

"What does that mean?" Marvin asks, leaning closer. 

Whizzer raises an eyebrow and says just as seriously, "Where's the nearest train station?"

Marvin pushes Whizzer's hand away with a laugh. "Nice one. Very sexy."

"It's the only thing I could think of," Whizzer laughs. "Rosetta Stone is obsessed with that one."

"How is this so easy?"

"Well, clearly it's not, I can only say like three things."

"No," Marvin shakes his head. "No, not French. This. Being here together. It's like no time has passed at all." 

"And yet everything has changed."

"For the better mostly."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean we're finally being honest with each other. And I know I've changed for the better and I think you have too."

Whizzer looks down again. "Maybe. What's your point?"

"My point is our timing is shit."

"Or maybe it's just right. Maybe my moving is stopping us from making this same mistake again."

"Maybe."

Whizzer wrings his hands together, pulling anxiously at each of his fingers. "I'm sorry," he says after a while, still not looking up.

"For what?"

"For never allowing myself to be what you needed. For knowing that I was hurting you and doing nothing about it."

Marvin places a hand on Whizzer's cheek and tilts his head to face him. "I'm sorry too," he says softly. "For just, you know, generally being a dick."

Whizzer laughs and rolls his eyes.

"Seriously. I was insecure and stupid and I wish I could do it all over again."

"Me too." Whizzer leans into Marvin's hand and shuts his eyes. Opening them again, he places a hand at the base of Marvin's neck, where it meets his shoulder. Slowly, he starts to lean in. "I'm leaving tomorrow," Whizzer says. “No matter what happens, I’m leaving.”

"I know," Marvin says. "It’s okay."

Whizzer nods. "Okay." 

And he kisses him. Slowly. Carefully. Like he's worried he'll fuck it up somehow.

 

An hour and a trip to Duane Reade later--Whizzer really didn’t think he’d be getting laid the night before leaving when he was deciding what to pack and throw out--they’re lying together on the couch, Whizzer running his fingers gently through Marvin’s hair. 

Whizzer plants a kiss on Marvin’s temple. “I’m gonna miss you too,” he mutters into his skin.

Whizzer can feel Marvin smile. “I’ll visit. And Skype and shit.”

“You better.”

“And you’ll visit New York sometimes too.”

“Of course.”

“Then this isn’t a goodbye. Not really.”

Whizzer leans his head back into the arm of the couch and shuts his eyes, rubbing circles into Marvin’s arm. The apartment goes silent again, but it’s not an uncomfortable silence. Not this time.

Whizzer’s eyes pop open. “A school gymnasium,” he says suddenly.

Marvin looks up at him, eyebrows raised. “What?”

“That’s what it smells like,” Whizzer explains. “A school gymnasium, but at the beginning of the day or right before a school dance. When they’ve just cleaned. And they use the most pungent chemicals to mask the smell of sweat and hormones. It smells like a school gymnasium right before a dance. They always smell the same.”

“You’re right,” Marvin says. “That’s what it is. Though I guess I wouldn’t know about the dance bit.”

“You never went to a single school dance?”

Marvin shakes his head.

“Not even prom?”

“Nope,” Marvin says. “I was supposed to. With this poor girl I was dating at the time. But with all the expectations of Prom night and everything… I ended up with my head in a toilet before I even finished putting on my tux. Ruined her night for sure, and then broke up with her the next day, so it was a rough couple of days for us both.”

“At least you didn’t throw up on her.”

“You’re right. Silver linings.”

“Well, speaking as someone who used to go to dances all the time with my friends, you didn’t miss out on much.”

“No?”

“I was the only openly gay kid in my school, so I would go with my friends, and had a blast during all of the fast songs, but then a slow song would come on, and all of the couples would pair up, and I would just retreat into the gym wall, watching my friends slow-dance with their boyfriends… Watching this boy I was fucking slow dance with his girlfriend… You start thinking that you’ll always be on the sidelines like that.”

Marvin sits up then and picks up his phone, searching through it until he finds what he needs. When he sets it down, 98 Degrees’ “My Everything” starts playing from its shitty speakers. 

“Oh God, what’s happening?” Whizzer asks.

“If I remember correctly, this was  _ the  _ cheesy slow song of my college years. So I’m sure it was played at every one of your high school dances.”

Whizzer nods slowly. “That doesn’t answer my question.”

Marvin stands up and reaches out his hand. “May I have this dance?”

Whizzer laughs and nods, taking his hand and letting Marvin pull him up onto the empty living room floor. He drapes his arms over Marvin’s shoulders, as Marvin wraps his arms around his waist. Whizzer presses his forehead against Marvin’s and shuts his eyes as they sway slowly to the sound of a terrible pop song. Just like he always wanted, as he ate handfuls of popcorn at the back of a stuffy gymnasium that smelled like chemical cleaners. “God, if my 16-year-old self could see me now.”

They stay there, in the middle of an empty living room, in their underwear, swaying back and forth, back and forth, while the song fades out and back in again, over and over again. As time passes, Whizzer starts to feel himself sink. Like the Earth is pulling him back, and he’s finally touching the ground again after years and years in orbit. Like the world is finally coming back into focus. 

“This has to be goodbye,” he whispers shakily.

“I know,” Marvin says, dropping his head into Whizzer’s shoulder. “I know.”

Whizzer wraps his arms tighter around Marvin’s neck, and rests his head on his arms. “I love you,” he breathes, the words slipping from his lips like a sigh of relief.

Marvin lifts his head and presses their lips together one more time. “I love you, too. I always will.”

And they let the song fade out one more time, just two slow dancers in a suddenly empty room. 

**Author's Note:**

> AHHH hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Inspired, of course, by Two Slow Dancers by Mitski.
> 
> Been a while since I've posted, wow. Sorry about that. And, no, I haven't forgotten about Crazy Notion, I'm just majorly blocked, so I'm hoping this little one-shot will knock something loose.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comment!


End file.
